Yes, you did count correctly – there are twelve zeroes after the two. Another month of Government borrowing above £20bn has pushed total Government debt over the £2tn level for the first time.

S&P 500 at a record high – so should we party like it’s 1999?
Where were you at the turn of the millennium? When the dot-com bubble burst? Well on Tuesday 18 August, the S&P 500 crept up by 0.23%. It was enough to bring the reading on the index to just above the previous high that it had hit nearly six months previously, on 19 February. In between those two peaks there was a fall of 33.9% to 23 March followed by a rally of 51.5%. The obvious question is why? The USA economy today is much less healthy – in all senses – than it was in February.